This 4-0 margin (with 1 draw) was the best by India against England, surpassing the 3-0 clean sweep in 1992-93. England had won 5-0 in 1959 and 4-0 in 2011, though the same teams also played an all-drawn 5-Test series in 1963-64.

At the end of this series, 117 Tests had been played between the two countries. England has won 43, India 25 and 49 were drawn. In India, England has won 13, India leads with 19 and 28 were drawn. In England, England has won 30, India 6 and 21 were drawn.

And India’s first-ever Test victory was against England at Madras in February 1952. On that occasion Mankad took 12 wickets, Hazare was India’s captain, and DB Carr was England’s stand-in captain playing the second and last Test of his career.

We now look at Batting: Most runs (1000 and above):

We can see that the most centuries were scored by Dravid and Tendulkar (7), followed by Azharuddin, Cook and Pietersen with 6.

The most 50-plus scores were scored by Gavaskar and Tendulkar (20), followed by Viswanath (16), Dravid (15) and Cook (14).

Next, we look at Highest Individual Scores (180 and above):

First Kohli (235) and then Nair (303*) made the highest scores for India vs England, surpassing Kambli’s 224 in 1992-93. Only Gooch’s 333 is larger. More about Nair’s achievements in my previous post.

KL Rahul’s 199 in this series was also noteworthy. There seem to be quite a number of 190s here.

Highest batting averages (Minimum 20 innings, 35.00 and above):

The first name on the list may appear surprising, though he was very consistent against India. It is surprising that Barrington’s average is much higher than that of second-placed Dravid. Note the relatively low positions of Gavaskar and Viswanath. Dravid and Azharuddin did considerably better compared to other Indian batsmen.

Now we move to Bowling.

Most wickets (30 and above):

It is not very likely that Anderson will cross the tallies of Chandrasekhar and Kumble. Broad and Ashwin are next among current players.

The most fivers were by Chandrasekhar (8) and Botham (6) followed by several others with 4. Only Bedser took two tenners; in fact he started his Test career with two 11-wicket hauls.

Best innings bowling (including all instances of 7 wickets in an innings):

Only Jadeja from the current series. Note that the top two performances were over 60 years ago.

Best match bowling (including all instances of 10 wickets in a match):

Ashwin and Jadeja reached their marks in this series, Ashwin making the third best performance. Here we can see how Bedser did in his first two Tests. There are also the one-off performances by L Siva and JK Lever who did not fulfill their early promise.

The feat of taking 5 wickets in an innings is often equated with that of scoring a century. But the former does not get much attention in standard record books and websites. Many of them will have a list of players who scored a century on Test or ODI debut, but will not have a corresponding list of those who took 5wi (or 10wm) on debut.

Here we start with a list of Indian players who took 5wi on Test debut:

Nissar achieved this in India’s very first Test. Hirwani is the only one to take 5wi in both innings. He and Australia’s RAL Massie are the only ones take 8 wickets in each innings on debut, and indeed the only ones to do so in any Test.

Here are the players who took 5wi on Test debut, that Test being against India:

Some of them did not do much in their career. Krejza, for instance, played in only one more Test. JK Lever is the only one to score a fifty and take 10wm in his debut Test, but he ended up without much achievement in batting. And Klusener became more of a batsman in his subsequent career. However, Bedser went on to take 11 wickets in his second Test (also against India) and went on to become one of England’s leading bowlers of his time.

We also look at 8 or more wickets in a match on debut (since instances of 10wm are somewhat rare here).

8 or more wickets in match by Indian bowlers on Test debut:

The only 10wm here is Hirwani’s 16-136, which is the best match bowling figures by any Test debutant. It is just ahead of Massie’s 16-137 for Aus vs Eng in 1972.

Ashwin and Shami narrowly missed taking 10wm on debut. Ashwin soon made up for this, though Shami is yet to achieve this landmark.

8 or more wickets in match by bowlers on Test debut, that Test being against India:

While Krezja has the best figures here, he only played one Test after this. WM Clark also had a short career.